Masters of a planning mess

Economists should also ask whether the Plan will really make Delhi a richer place than at present. At the expected rate of growth, by the year 2021 Delhi will be four times ‘richer’. Is that correct? Will citizens of Delhi have four times better dwellings, four times less pollution, four times better transportation, four times better water supply? Then is the promised growth in prosperity a reality or an illusion?

High-rise construction is the core of the Delhi Master Plan. The planners seem to be unaware that, across the world, high-rise apartments for the poor have become a security disaster. In France, in Britain, in the US, huge apartment blocks built at great expense had to be abandoned, even pulled down, because crime in such buildings became uncontrollable.

In her masterpiece, Life and Death of Great Cities, Jane Jacobs has pointed out how cities remain secure only when there are a “hundred eyes” watching the streets. In friendly neighbourhoods, people are out in the open; people know one another. Any stranger stands out like a sore thumb. When people live behind closed doors, no one is truly safe. That is particularly true of corridors of high-rise apartments. In such buildings, people shut themselves in. It can be taken as a given that in the apartments of the poor, the corridors will not be lit. Therefore, every person who steps into the corridor faces the risk of attack.

There is a solution to this situation, a fairly expensive one. Five-star hotels run similar risks with their long, unattended corridors and in their lifts. They remedy the problem by enclosing their lifts in glass and placing them in the full view of the atrium where at all times a number of people would be sitting or moving around. If the planners were wise, they too will dictate that all high-rise apartments are built around an atrium, which will then have enough people to notice anything unusual happening in the lifts or in the corridors. That is the only way high-density high-rise apartments will be safe. However, will the Plan have enough space to spare for atriums? Is the cost bearable?

Citizens of Delhi should ask whether the planned expansion will make their city a safer place to live and provide them with a better quality of life. It is no secret that Delhi’s traders have forced the government to act the way it has. They think they will make a killing when property prices shoot up. They think that by expanding Delhi without limit they will expand their business, and become richer and richer. Will they?

In a city as crowded as the planners have envisaged, will they sell more cars or will they sell less? After paying exorbitant rents, will the people of an enlarged Delhi have more disposable income or less? Will their customers have more time or less time for leisure activities after commuting over longer and longer distances? Considering that leisure activities are the drivers of consumption, will the Delhi market truly expand as much as it could? That is, are the traders getting a truly maximised market, or are they looking at a mirage of paper money whose purchasing power will increasingly shrink? Are Delhi’s traders of today truly better off then their parents? Are they living in better houses? Are they more secure? Do they enjoy a cleaner environment? Are they getting even enough water? What kind of a future will they be leaving for their children and their children’s children?

The problem with the Delhi Master Plan is that nobody is asking the right questions.

The writer is former director of IIT, Chennai